Medical students, interns, residents, and fellows, specializing in diagnosing and treating injuries to, and the diseases of, the eye must necessarily practice certain surgical techniques on various models of the human eye prior to actually operating on human patients. Prior art training methods often use animal eyes, such as, for example human cadaver eyes or cow eyes.
The use of human cadaver and/or animal eyes (collectively “biological eyes”) is burdened with many procedural issues. The biological eyes must be refrigerated before use, and even when refrigerated suffer from a short “shelf life” due to inevitable biological decomposition. The handling of such biological eyes requires compliance with, among other regulations, the Blood Born Pathogens Standard promulgated under the federal Occupational Health and Safety Act. After use, the biological eyes must be properly disposed of.
What is needed is a model human eye that closely mimics the anatomy and physiology of the human eye, but which does not require refrigeration and other special handling procedures.